One Step Beyond was launched by Flavorpill in 2007. The party really took off in January '08 with Kanye West's surprise appearance. For the second season, the Museum started producing One Step Beyond themselves, co-presenting with The Fader. The Village Voice heralded the third year kick-off with this review - "One Step Beyond literally has you on another planet with the spectacular light show".
Molecularium & The Making of MEL: Rutt/Etra Restorations
from "Molecules to the MAX" © & ™ Rensselaer 2009
photo by David Last
In an imaginary world populated by talking atoms, what would a computer look like? For "Molecules to the MAX", a educational CG IMAX feature for kids, Nanotoon enlisted Visions to design and create the character MEL with analog visual FX.
Director V Owen Bush, Art Director Chris Harvey, Producer Kurt Przybilla and Analog FX artist Benton-C Bainbridge decided that the Rutt/Etra Video Synthesizer would allow them to build an entrancing abstract character with sound-responsive 'lip sync'. The Rutt/Etra could also create FX inspired by the analog animations from The Electric Company and Sesame Street.
"My first inspiration as a movie maker was the electronic animations from Electric Company." says Benton-C Bainbridge. "Even as a 7 year old I could see that there was someone making those words into crazy spin-art patterns; I knew I wanted to be one of those video magicians."
The first challenge was the restoration of 4 Rutt/Etra Video Synths. A team was put together by Daniel Summer that included the co-inventors Steve Rutt and Bill Etra themselves, along with the expertise of other analog video synth specialists including Dave Jones Designs, Kyle Lapidus of LoVid, Matthew Schlanger of Black Hammer Productions, Tom Ditto, Bear Labs, Woody Vasulka, Gary Hill, and the world's only Rutt/Etra repair technician, Jeffrey Schier.
Once the parts were hunted down, schematics redrawn, and the R/E Synths were calibrated, the FX for MEL were made in a series of sessions with Bill Etra and Benton-C Bainbridge.
Check out Dan Winckler's post or David Last's photos from the Rutt/Etra repairs.
photo by David Last
photo by Jasmine Ceniceros
Sonic Vision
Over 6 years later Sonic Vision is still playing and has developed a cult following around the world!! In New York City Sonic Vision can be seen at the Hayden Planetarium on Friday and Saturday evenings, at 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. For specific info and tickets go to http://www.amnh.org/rose/dome/
also - Sonic Vision has been included in the history of Sound & Vision timeline
Chris Harvey - Creative Director of SonicVision is a longtime friend and collaborator of Glowing Pictures
some articles about Sonic Vision: Michel Marriott's New York Times Article, Jon Pareles' New York Times Review, AMNH's promotional PDF
here's some of what Wikipedia has to say about Sonic Vision:
Sonic Vision is a digitally animated planetarium music show featuring 38 minutes of music from 17 different musical artists. The content of the animation includes visions of astronomy and space travel as well as abstractions, mandalic imagery, and visual puns. It is a descendant of the laser light shows popular at planetariums in the 1980s and 1990s. As a fully digitally animated music show in a planetarium half-sphere video format, Sonic Vision is likely the first of its kind anywhere in the world.
The creative director of Sonic Vision was Chris Harvey, who drew on cosmic, mystical, and mandalic imagery as well as visions of alien civilizations and distant worlds to bring the half-sphere format to life. Other contributing artists and animators include Benton-C Bainbridge, Madam Chao, Vishwanath Bush, Atmospherex, Mark Bajuk, Carter Emmart, Ed Manning, Bruce Gionet, Matt Pursley, Joshua Minges, Andrew Harper, Doug Vitarelli, and Erik Wesselak. Curious Pictures, Bionic Dots, and Atmospherex also created animations for the project. Imagery from Alex Grey's painting "Collective Vision" appears in one scene.
In addition to playing at the American Museum of Natural History, Sonic Vision also shows at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Oakland's Chabot Space & Science Center, and the Milwaukee Public Museum's planetarium.
from "Clocks" by Coldplay, visual by Chris Harvey & Atmospherex / • AMNH
from "Julie and Candy" by Boards of Canada, visual by Chris Harvey & Ed Manning • AMNH
from "Utopia" by Goldfrapp, visual by Chris Harvey & Josh Minges • AMNH
SonicVision features a mix by Moby, with music from:
- Radiohead, Audioslave, U2, Moby, Stereolab, White Zombie, Goldfrapp, Spiritualized, Brian Eno & David Byrne, David Bowie, Coldplay, Fischerspooner, The Prodigy, Queens of the Stone Age, Boards of Canada, The Flaming Lips, Zwan
BEASTIE BOYS - LAB COAT & FEZ
photo by J Suga Mama/Jenny Schulder
I got the gig as Beastie Boys' screens video designer because they were looking for a VJ using an oscilloscope (which happens to be the name of the 'Boys lab). Spike Brant, my friend and UnityGain collaborator Jenny Schulder's husband who was doing their lighting and stage design, asked me to do a live 'scope demo to the upcoming single "Ch-Check It Out" and I passed the test :)
The first show I did was the MTV VMA's performance. The Beastie Boys asked Spike for all-green lighting-scheme to match the oscilloscopes but MTV insisted on some white. This was followed by appearances on nearly every MTV Networks channel globally. Here's a highlights reel:
After a few TV specials, I was happy to start playing 'real' concerts for the summer stages. The Beasties asked me to wear a white lab coat since I was at extreme downstage right with my mad-scientist rig of oscillscopes, rescan cameras and other 'radio shack' gear as tour manager Bill Rahmy called it. Jenny, Spike, Nemo Hoffman and I used a lot of rescan to create hi-con shots of NYC's five boroughs- and of the 'iMag' of the band on stage. Later, someone dubbed this technique 'artMag'.
We worked with Stephan Moore to create ScopeMate, software that replaced a rack of EQs and oscillators I was using to drive the scopes- the presets function made it easier to keep up with Mix Master Mike!
For the stadium tour in support of "To the 5 Boroughs", the show became more sophisticated. We incorporated EIC Stuart White's custom built matrix camera rig and multiple robot cams under his control, content from the earlier concerts as well as more material from the Beasties themselves. We swapped the old-school gear for a bleeding-edge system integrating light and video control through 3 networked GrandMA lighting boards. Using Breck Haggerty's NEV system, the video cues were gradually integrated with the lighting cues being triggered by Mike Lamb. As the tour progressed, I basically programmed myself off the tour.
By 2007's The Mix Up tour, I was strictly a co-designer/co-creator of the video content displayed on Spike Brant's amazing RGB LED "Calder-Mobile". However, for the Beastie Boy's one-off shows, short legs and TV appearances, I'll get called in for special designs or to VJ from the stage, though the 'Boys asked me to trade the lab coat for a vintage suit.
You can read about the video and lighting design for "To the 5 Boroughs" tour at Live Design
TV ON THE RADIO - "STARING AT THE SUN"
Here's the TV on the Radio video directed by Elliot Jokelson that Benton processed with the Rutt/Etra Video Synth.
quote from a RES magazine article about the video:
"The lead visual instrument we used was the Rutt/Etra Video Synthesizer. We made patch after patch, hooking up miles of cables and running the song over and over again, driving the neighbors crazy. Only a small fraction of the textures, palettes and techniques we tried out made it into the final cut, but the keeper image process passes all have a gorgeous organic quality to them because they emphasize the human hand...that gestural quality of buttons, knobs and sliders you just don't get with a timeline," explains Jokelson of the video's pleasing distortions."
Synaesthesiologists: Global Audiovisuals at Lincoln Center
Benton-C Bainbridge co-produced and co-curated (with David Last) the Synaesthesiologists Video Festival of audio-visual artists and VJs at Lincoln Center's Walter Reed Theatre as a part of the 2004 New York Video Festival. This global survey included experimental videos and animations, VJ sets and generative art, presented as a seamlessly mixed feature-length movie, an interactive video jukebox, and live audiovisual performances.
just a few of the artists we presented:
2-5 BZ • Bill Etra • Bitshifter • Chiaki • Damon Soule • DJ Ray Dawn • Honeygun Labs • Jake Mandell/Jeffers Egan • Johnny deKam • Matthew Schlanger • Naval Cassidy • qpe • Ralph and Sherry Miller Hocking • Rev.99 • Scott Pagano • SEIN & Sequence3 • Solu • Twerk
AMERICAN CHOPPER REMIXED
Here's "American Chopper Remixed", a campaign for LUGZ Boots that included a nationally televised :30 and :10 in heavy rotation; the viral video and has 50,000 views on youtube!
Bonus points to those who pick up on the Kenneth Anger moment ;)
thanks to av-a-nt for help on this one.
Projects at Eyebeam
After teaching workshops with Director of Education and Public Programming, Liz Slagus, Benton-C Bainbridge became the inaugural Education Fellow at Eyebeam in 2006-2007.
Benton capped his fellowship with a collaborative performance of Brother Islands, which also launched Paul Amitai's MIXER quarterly at Eyebeam.
Since then, Benton-C has done visual design, installations and VJ'ing for several MIXERs and two Eyebeam Benefits.
Check back next week for pictures and more info...
BooTube
Glowing Pictures is pleased to announce their first release of ambient visuals for the Halloween Holidays: “BooTube”.
Need video for your screens this Halloween? “BooTube” is the answer for bars, lounges and clubs for Halloween parties and special events.
“BooTube” is a suite of looping video mixes tailored for screens in public spaces. The feature-length presentations elegant remixes of classic horror films in distinct 'flavors' which may be played individually or on multiple screens for dazzling effect. “BooTube: Night of the Living Dead” is painterly descent into the ambient fear of the Original Zombie Film, George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead". “BooTube: Fever Dream” is a lush stream-of-conscious melange of clips that unfold in a painterly dream-scape. “BooTube: Tricks and Treats” combines a high energy mix with subliminal shocks best suited for dance floors. All three loops are chock-full of ghouls, were-creatures, zombies and other creepy crawling beasts.
“BooTube” is available for rental or purchase in HD and SD formats.
Glowing Pictures is the leading Digital Experiences company providing comprehensive artistic and technical services to deliver stunning content for Screens in architectural, environmental and performing arts settings.
Global Multimedia Operas
Glowing Pictures has had a long history designing visuals for the performing arts, working with dance companies, theater groups and musicians of all genres. Since opera is the original 'live multimedia', we're thrilled that directors have been asking us to contribute our projection design for productions around the world. Our favorite collaborations include John King's take on Alain Robbe-Grillet's "La Belle Captive" which premiered in Buenos Aires and subsequently played in London and New York, and Friso Haverkamp and Martijn Padding's "Tattooed Tongues" at Saint Petersburg's Tricentennial celebration.
Benton-C Bainbridge recently made new digital media shows for two very contemporary takes on "opera": John King's "Galileo Galilei" and a lecture on the work of Gabriel Von Wayditch, who holds the Guinness World Record for the longest opera ever composed!
Benton-C Bainbridge co-designed the video installation and visual performance with regular collaborator Minou Maguna for "Galileo Galilei", John King´s experimental opera based on Bertolt Brecht´s "Life of Galileo". This multimedia opera was the inaugural performance at Teatro Argentino—CEC´s brand new theater—and was performed by Bainbridge and Maguna with Analía Couceyro, María Inés Aldaburu, John King, Jorge Chikiar, Cuarteto Brulée y Ensemble Vocal Femenino.
Click here for more information about the run at Centro de Experimentatión y Creacíon del Teatro Argentino, La Plata, Argentina Click here for a peek at Galileo Galilei
The Hungarian Cultural Center, in cooperation with Brooklyn Museum's Target First Saturdays, recently presented a multichannel video lecture/performance by Benton-C Bainbridge, composer and music journalist Frank J. Oteri, pianist Lloyd Arriola, and performers of the Vertical Player Repertory on prolific Hungarian-American composer and unsung genius Gabriel von Wayditch (1888–1969). Using moving-mirror projections, live drawings and intelligent projectors, Glowing Pictures brought the obsessive (and somewhat racy) world of Wayditch to life in a fantasy of light.
Click here for pictures from the Gabriel Von Wayditch lecture/performance
QUIET! / We Live in public
Ondi Timoner's "We Live In Public" recently won the 2009 Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Documentery. V Owen Bush is documented and interviewed in the film about his participation and co-production of the QUIET! event with Josh Harris in December 1999 the month leasing up to Y2K. Bush and Gabrielle Latessa produced "FULL" the dining experience which provided banquet breakfasts lunches and dinners at no cost, to the temporary society of "podwellian dwellers" who were 24 hour residents of the QUIET! capsule hotel. The QUIET! / We Live In Public experiment is widely regarded as a prophetic examination of the heavily networked socially-mediated world we now live in. This social experiment lasted for a month, until it abruptly ended when the QUIET event was raided by FDNY, NYPD, FEMA, and 2 SWAT Teams on New Years Day 2000.
We Live In Public is in limited distribution and on the festival circuit. See www.weliveinpublicthemovie.com
Selected artists and groups we've worked with
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five •
Lynyrd Skynyrd & Charlie Daniels •
Three Doors Down •
Moby •
LL Cool J •
Coldplay •
The Merce Cunningham Dance Company •
Multipolyomni & We™ •
Ludacris •
DJ Mehdi •
Grace Jones •
Paul Oakenfold •
Kanye West •
Bobby Previte •
DJ Assault •
The Orb •
EBN •
Donato Poveda •
Jonathan Peters •
Supa DJ Dmitry •
Destiny's Child •
Beastie Boys •
TV on the Radio •
Public Enemy •
Bonde Do Role •
DJ Spooky •
Thunderheist •
Japanther •
Jazzy Jeff •
Hillary Duff •
Outkast •
Richie Hawtin •
JG Thirlwell •
A-Trak •
Josh Wink & King Britt •
Venetian Snares •
Pauline Oliveros / Deep Listening Institute •
Fall Out Boy
Selected companies and venues we've worked with.
L.A.M.B. (Gwen Stefani) •
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute •
American Museum of Natural History •
Madison Square Garden •
Discovery •
Bud Select •
MTV Networks •
PBS •
Lincoln Center •
The Whitney Museum •
Central Park Summer Stage •
MySpace •
Flavorpill •
Performance Environment Design Group/artFAG LLC •
Peter Gatien •
Liquid Sky •
The Producer's Guild of America •
Saturday Night Live •
IMAX Corp. •
Technicolor •
SFMoMA •
The Kitchen •
Eyebeam •
Harvestworks •
The Knitting Factory •
Roseland Ballroom •
David Mancuso / the Loft •
Josh Harris / Pseudo Networks •
Brooklyn Anchorage / Creative Time •
American Museum of the Moving Image •
Detroit Electronic Music Festival •
EMPAC (Troy, NY) •
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.) •
Teatro Colon CETC (Buenos Aires) •
CELCIT (Managua) •
the Hard Rock Cafe (Guadalajara) •
Red Bull DJ Academy (Berlin) •
Tresor (Berlin) •
Sonic Light (Amsterdam) •
Le Lieu Unique (Nantes) •
LUX2006 (Sevilla) •
Museu Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon) •
Batofar (Paris) •
Pitchfork • Showpaper • CMJ
